Bytes
by shadowwolf75
Summary: Another ficlet collection much like the one I have for Wall-E. Various characters, various subjects, though expect maybe a little focus on a certain vampire bot. Latest ficlet: an unfinished crossover attempt . . .
1. Rise or Fall

This is probably the start to another ficlet collection thing . . . updates will probably be sporadic at best as this is not my main fandom.

* * *

**Rise or Fall**

He didn't really know why Zurg had rebuilt him, other than the fact the Emperor needed someone able to lead his Hornets more effectively. So there NOS-4-A2 was: on a battlefield on some distant red planet, shredding organic and robotic Rangers alike, with an almost infinite amount of Hornets to assist him.

A sentry bot tried to get a bead on him with a heavy plasma cannon. The vampire chuckled darkly and darted forward, a weapon that slow wasn't going to hit him! A quick flash of silver claws, and the sentry bot was lacking a head. Before the corpse could even hit the ground, the energy sucker had grabbed it and drained it of what little energy remained. He idly tossed the empty husk at an organic Ranger, grinned nastily as the few hundred pounds of robot parts crushed his unfortunate target, and then soared off in search of his next kill.

As NOS-4-A2 flew over the carnage, he saw that the Hornets weren't exactly being slouches in the combat department either. A hail of lasers vaporized a whole battalion of Rangers, and there were more of the dead with smoking holes in them strewn all over the battle zone. The wounds didn't bleed, but even if they did, the color would be lost between the red sky and the red soil.


	2. Mass Relay Malfunction

This is my ficlet collection, who said the writing had to be completely finished? Here's bits of a crossover that never got off the ground . . .

* * *

"Joker, I thought you said the mass relay was working?"

"I did, but I guess it was working a little too well? Not getting transponders from any of the other relays except for the one we came through and this one right here, and it looks like this one just closed itself."

"Any comms traffic from any channel?"

"I'm checking now, Commander." A minute or so passed, and Joker looked a little confused. "I'm getting traffic from some sort of Alliance, but it's not ours. There's something about a 'Star Command' on here too, sounds military . . . oh crap, I think they picked up the relay going off! Just intercepted a comm that they're sending Cruiser 42 to check things out."

"Well, wherever this place is, I guess we're getting company. Hopefully we can avoid a fight until we find out what they're capable of."

* * *

They'd been in a joint mission with Buzz's team all afternoon on Planet Z, trying to keep Zurg's Hornets distracted long enough for the captain to finish stopping the Evil Emperor's latest scheme. Shepard had brought Garrus and Tali with her, so they weren't having much trouble keeping the Hornets thinned out.

Shepard chucked a Shockwave down an alleyway, taking out about four Hornets in one shot. "Anyone else getting bored?" Before she could say anything else, return fire from the bots forced her to duck behind the cover she was using.

Meanwhile, Tali hit a few buttons on her omni-tool, hacking into the nearest Hornet and setting it after its brothers. Another four or five of them blew up in the resulting hail of plasma, but before said Hornet could turn on her once again, the quarian hit it with a shotgun blast and scrapped it as well.

Garrus was having fun alternately sniping the Hornets or just overloading them with his omni-tool. He was about to snipe another when he heard an explosion above them. Using his sight to get a look at Zurg's tower, he saw the roof had been blown off, and the rangers seemed to be chasing a robot towards their position. The new bot looked vaguely Hornet-shaped, but was missing the standard legs and blasters, and had a set of glowing energy wings. As soong as whatever it was got in range, the Turian did the first thing that came to mind, he tried overloading it. The energy hit, and the robot fell out of the air, letting loose an unholy screech.

Mira blinked in surprise as she came in for a landing near Tali. "Did he just take down NOS-4-A2 in one shot?"

At the question, Tali aimed her omni-tool at the still falling robot. If she wasn't wearing that mask, those around might've seen her arch an eyebrow in curiosity. "Surprisingly enough, no. In fact, I think it somehow gained more energy from that. Is that normal?"

NOS corrected his flight soon enough, the overload only managing to disrupt his wings briefly. Licking his lips as he hovered there, he surveyed his enemies. "Even new rangers want to feed me? Lovely." He feinted a lunge at Shepard, getting rewarded when Garrus almost instinctively tried to overload him again. More prepared this time, the energy vampire kept his place in the air, taking a moment to savor the new energy coursing through his systems.

He didn't get a chance to enjoy it for long, as Buzz, XR and Booster finally caught up, with the captain unloading a potshot to get him to back off. "Varkarian, stop feeding the energy vampire!"


End file.
